I was planning its demise all week and thinking about whom to blame. Would it be Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with a wrench, Professor Plum in the kitchen with a candlestick, or maybe Mrs. Peacock in the study with a lead pipe?

None of those would have been the correct answer. Had I gone through with the murder, the one to blame would have been the director in the field with a saw.

Benito Mussolini had this less-than-conciliatory policy: “Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts.”

Ouch. Someone needs to lighten up.

“How dry I am, how dry I am

Nobody knows how dry I am”

(No hiccup necessary)

This ditty could be the theme song of dusty miller, a plant that grows in the desiccated dunes of the seashore. As a dune dweller, dusty miller has had to adapt or perish.

Blow your horn for the trumpet-shaped flowers of jewelweed!

These pretty petals do more than just beautify the wet woodlands. Along with the flower’s stem and leaves, this plant can irk the itch and stop the scratching. It is perhaps one of the most practical prescriptions from nature to relieve skin conditions of all types.

September is for the birds.

Now, Soo Whiting, don’t get your feathers ruffled, I won’t tread on your turf (see column to the right). These birds of September are in the sky but won’t fly away or be found in a Sibley Guide. My birds live in the autumn night sky, immortalized forever by the stars.

Although escargot was not served, somehow a snail found its way to a dinner party that I attended last weekend.

The marauding mollusk crashed the party with an invited guest who brought it to be identified. She had found it hitchhiking on a Comcast truck.